In search of the stories and rituals surrounding death, members of the Interdisciplinary Center for Theatrical Research at Unicamp, Lume Teatro, visited cemeteries, funeral homes, and hospitals in different regions of the country. Death began to be experienced not as an abstraction, but as a daily experience, based on accounts from gravediggers, palliative care professionals, and death doulas in research that will result in a new show, scheduled to premiere in early 2027.
Actresses and researchers Ana Cristina Colla and Raquel Scotti Hirson, members of Lume
since 1994 and faculty members of the Postgraduate Program in Performing Arts at the Institute of
Arts (IA) report that they traveled throughout Brazil to investigate rituals, practices, and crafts that
They surround human finitude. "Field research is part of our way of working. It's the way we've found to answer the questions that the performance itself poses to us," says Colla.
This research is part of the thematic project “Pedagogies, Processes and Archives of Presence”, funded by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), and the project of the Incentive Program for New Researchers – an initiative of Unicamp in conjunction with the Fund for Support of Teaching, Research and Extension (PIN-FAEPEX) –, “Perspectives on the invisibility of death in field research in the performing arts”.
The project, which also includes actors and researchers Renato Ferracini and Jesser de Souza, began to gain momentum after previous work dedicated to the study of Alzheimer's disease. Reflection on aging, frailty, and memory led the group to questions related to finitude. Then came the pandemic and the collective experience of living with death on a global scale.
“The theme of death has begun to affect us in a very strong way,” says Colla. “We started to wonder what kind of life we are living and what lies behind this place that is now almost taboo. While we want to live more and more, we talk very little about death.”
One of the first steps was to shadow palliative care teams in Campinas. The group visited both the Palliative Care Service at the Hospital de Clínicas (HC) of Unicamp and the Home Care Service (SAD), a municipal program that provides assistance to patients in their own homes. “We started shadowing the professionals on their home visits, and that opened up a whole new world for us,” recalls Colla. “It’s a very beautiful job, because it brings a more human perspective to this final stage of life.”
The margin
By broadening the scope of the investigation to the period after death, the group began talking to gravediggers, funeral home employees, embalmers, gardeners, and workers responsible for maintaining the graves. One of the most remarkable figures in this journey was Osmair Cândido, nicknamed "Fininho," a retired gravedigger from São Paulo with a degree in Philosophy. "He is a very interesting figure because he brings together these two worlds," says Hirson. "He has all the practical experience of the profession, but also a philosophical perspective on death."
The first contact with Fininho happened during a theatrical performance. After that came further conversations, visits, and a trip to the Vila Formosa Cemetery in São Paulo. “When we said our research was called 'Invisibilities of Death,' he immediately replied: 'Invisibility is a nice name for academia. What we suffer is contempt,'” recalls Colla. “He drew our attention to the condition of these people who work daily with death and who often remain on the margins of the social gaze,” he adds.
Throughout the research, the group also approached gardeners and grave caretakers. "These are people who know those spaces intimately," says Hirson. "Sometimes they know which flowers a family usually brings, which graves receive frequent visits, which ones have been abandoned. In many cases, the care persists because these very people create emotional bonds with those buried there."
North to South
Since July 2025, the research has covered different regions of the country to meet professionals and visit spaces related to the topic. Among the trips undertaken, the visit to Manaus (AM) was one of the most impactful experiences. The researchers visited the Nossa Senhora Aparecida Cemetery, which was hastily expanded during the most critical period of the Covid-19 pandemic. "There, we saw a space that needed to grow very quickly to accommodate the enormous number of deaths at that time," reports Hirson.
The visit revealed a concrete dimension of the tragedy experienced in the city. “The cemetery caretaker explained to us that, in many cases, the markings are symbolic. The indicated location does not always correspond exactly to where the person was buried. That affected us deeply,” recalls Colla.
In Porto Alegre (RS), the researchers met the so-called "death doulas" from the AmorTSer project, professionals who accompany patients and families during end-of-life processes, offering emotional support and practical guidance. According to Colla, they act similarly to birth doulas, but are focused on saying goodbye.
Hirson explains that these professionals help both with emotional support and with the practical issues that arise during this period. “When someone dies, people often don't know what to do. Will they cremate? Will they bury? How do they get the documents? What steps need to be taken? There is a great deal of disorientation,” he says.
For them, the cemeteries observed during the research reveal much more than funerary practices. “The cemetery is almost a micro-city; class differences appear there, the more cared-for areas, the more abandoned ones, the ruins, the affections. It is a very powerful portrait of society,” Colla emphasizes.
A show in progress.
Despite the large volume of accumulated material, the artists state that they are still searching for a stage form capable of bringing together all these experiences. The challenge involves articulating field reports, personal stories, documentary records, philosophical reflections, and experiences of grief. "We are in the middle of a knot," Colla summarizes. "We have materials of very different natures, very strong human experiences, and many unanswered questions."
The challenge now is to transform this journey through hospitals, cemeteries, and stories of grief into a poetic experience capable of speaking about death without losing sight of life. "We are trying to find a way that allows us to address this theme with depth, but also with sensitivity."
Show BeingBeing Women crosses a trajectory
In addition to research for the project, actress Ana Cristina Colla continues to perform her solo show. BeingBeing Women, this month's attraction within the Lume em Casa project, on June 20th and 21st, at 20 pm, at the group's headquarters (Rua Carlos Diniz Leitão, 150, in Barão Geraldo, Campinas).
The program is part of the celebrations for Unicamp's 60th anniversary and the Palco DCult project, an initiative of the Directorate of Culture (DCult), linked to the Pro-Rectorate for Extension, Sports and Culture (ProEEC). Admission is free, with some tickets reserved through the Sympla platform and others available for pickup one hour before the start of activities.
Created in 2012, BeingBeing Women It was born when the actress was completing two decades of work at Lume and participating in national and international meetings of women artists. At that moment, she says, the theme of the feminine intensely permeated her reflections. “I looked back and saw how many women had already crossed my path, how many I had met on stage or off. That's where the desire to bring them together was born.”
The show brings together characters built throughout the group's different creative processes. There are women encountered in field research conducted in the interior of Goiás, Tocantins, and Amazonas; characters inspired by homeless people observed in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro; and fictional figures created in the rehearsal room.
More than revisiting old shows, Colla explains, the work seeks to reveal the stories of these women and the impacts they had on her own journey. “What ties everything together is not the technique, nor the show they came from. What ties it all together is what affects me. They are very different women, but who somehow became a part of me.”
Although it originated from a proposal for deconstruction – a common practice in the performing arts where artists revisit their own creative processes – Being Women She took a different approach. Instead of revealing behind-the-scenes details or creative techniques, Colla decided to place the characters at the center of the narrative. "I didn't want to show how they were created. I wanted to bring these women closer," she says.
At the end of the performance, the actress summarizes this idea in a phrase that has become a kind of trademark of the show: "This is me dressed as all these women."
With a simple structure – a rug, a drum, a chair, and a few props – the production was designed for easy transport. “I wanted a show that could fit in a suitcase,” she says. This choice allowed the show to tour different countries over the past few years, such as Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, Costa Rica, and Portugal, as well as various regions of Brazil, including women's prisons, public squares, and alternative spaces.
For Colla, one of the most beautiful discoveries of this journey was realizing how those characters resonated with very different audiences. “These women end up finding other women in every place they go. The stories are different, but there is something that is recognizable.”
Cover photo
